Friday Focus

December 18, 2015

Friday Focus

December 18, 2015

Wow! First semester is gone and it went fast. I am so proud of the hard work this staff has put in. We really have put ourselves in a position to make this place amazing. I truly believe our students are getting a top notch education and that solely happens because of the efforts of you. We do not have state of the art facilities, we are way behind others in technology implementation, and we are too small to have a ton of offerings for kids. With all of those limitations, we are still helping students reach their potential. That shows me the power of caring about kids and working on critical thinking skills will beat out all of the other stuff. You are the most important factor in the success of our students.

I hope you had the time to watch Mr. Downs’ video about our high school achievement scores.

He did an excellent job of pointing out that we are doing amazing things and we should be very proud of our accomplishments to date. We also have some areas that need to see some growth soon. We struggle with our subgroup scores like many schools, but we have a larger gap than the state average. It is time to work on closing that achievement gap. When we formed our PLC, we knew that our mindset had to be about making sure every student is successful. That word every includes the students on IEPs and the students receiving free or reduced meals. How are we going to work on impacting them in a positive way? What more can we do to get them on board with us to help them become successful? We obviously have great strategies to reach a large crowd of students and they are proficient and advanced on the tests, but can we change to reach the rest?

All of you work so hard to help students and I want you to know that I appreciate you very much. Thank you for your hard work and thank you for choosing to be a part of the education world. Have a great break, rest hard, and spend way too much time with your family. Merry Christmas!!